Wild Country (The World of the Others #2)- Anne Bishop Page 0,196

of red spreading over the front of her dress.

Kane bursting through of the screen door of Maddie’s house so fast the man didn’t have time to turn and fire before the Wolf’s teeth closed on an arm and pulled the man down.

Bang! The gun went off as the man fell.

Kane savaging the man, closing his teeth on the man’s throat at the same time the man got his hand under the Wolf’s belly, and—

Bang! Bang!

Silence.

Silence and …

There was a hole in the screen door big enough to let in the flies. Why was there a hole in …

* * *

* * *

The moment he heard the gunshot, Tolya knew what would happen. What had to happen.

He and Yuri shifted to smoke and raced to the nearest tree a heartbeat before Parlan and the other men started shooting.

A Raven flew toward them.

A shot from the direction of the livery stable. The Raven fell.

Gunshots at the far end of the square, where Saul and Joshua had been keeping watch. More of the enemy must have slipped into town and would surround them.

He didn’t call to the other Sanguinati. Some of them wouldn’t answer, and he didn’t want to know. But he felt a hatred for humans that ran deeper and blacker than anything he’d ever felt before.

Staying close to the ground, he and Yuri raced across the street and wove through the low-growing plants that dotted the area between the stable and the blacksmith’s. Reaching the stable, they flowed around the building and over the sill of an open window in the back wall.

The two men with rifles who were using the stable doors for cover never realized the Sanguinati were there until Tolya and Yuri shifted to human form from the waist up and tore out the humans’ throats.

* * *

* * *

Scythe heard the first gunshot and abandoned the napkins she’d been folding—a useless human activity that Candice Caravelli had assured her would give the impression that she was occupied by a necessary task if someone should come into the saloon. After ordering Candice to go to her dressing room and stay there, Scythe had taken up a position at the end of the bar.

Now, underneath the sound of gunshots in the square, she heard the faint sound of a boot on the wooden floor, coming from the saloon’s rear exit.

Her hair turned solid black and coiled as she silently moved into position.

The gun and gun hand entered the main room first. Then the arm. Finally the rest of the man came into view—and he caught sight of her.

She looked him in the eyes and absorbed every drop of his life energy before he hit the floor.

Dead. Completely harvested. Still …

Remembering how it was done in frontier stories, Scythe stepped on his gun and moved it out of reach.

She was sated—a sensation she hadn’t enjoyed in a long time. It felt delicious, but … Maybe she was a little too sated? If more prey crossed her path, she wouldn’t be able to absorb enough life energy to do more than a little damage, and there were many enemies out there fighting with the Wolves and Sanguinati.

She looked at the gun. Six-shooter just like in the frontier stories. She pulled back the hammer, aimed at the already dead man, and fired.

The sound hurt her ears, but the action was simple enough.

As she moved to the front doors of the saloon, her black hair gained a few threads of red. She was too full to be instantly lethal if someone looked at her, but she could still take enough life energy to confuse her enemy—and the gun would do the rest.

* * *

* * *

Jana turned onto her street and hit the brakes as Kane burst through the door of Maddie’s house and attacked the armed man.

Bang!

Bang! Bang!

Throwing the gearshift into park, Jana scrambled out of the vehicle and used the car door for cover as she drew her own weapon and shouted, “Police!”

No sound. No movement. Nothing.

Abby was on the ground too, but Jana ran to Kane and the man, needing to disarm the assailant in case he was wounded but still alive.

Maybe her presence was perceived as a signal that it was all right to come out. Or maybe so little time had passed that people were just now shaking off fear-freeze. Either way, by the time she reached Kane and saw that the assailant had bled out from a torn throat, Hannah and